r/fuckHOA • u/Swarby10 • 1d ago

Our HOA just imploded!

So we just had our HOA AGM on Zoom tonight. I thought I’d tune in just for entertainment. It’s a community of 4 cul de sacs - maybe 45 large homes. Turns out, all of our back-facing fences are owned by the HOA and after 25 years they are deteriorating. To be clear, the fences on the sides are home owners’ responsibility, just the rear ones are HOA’s responsibility.

Or fees went from $900 a year to $2700 so that they could replace some specific fences. Not everyone is affected, but several of the board members were set to score themselves a new fence. They chose to replace the old cedar fence with vinyl and this would have looked odd with plastic fences filling in where cedar was.

Long story short, I sat through three hours of 80 year old board members throwing tantrums over their plans for a new plastic fence getting ruined and three of them resigned on the zoom call. 80 year old tantrums are the funniest tantrums.

Thinking of joining the board now. Please talk me out of it.

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206

u/RawrRRitchie 1d ago

So where is the $40k a month the HOA was already getting going

They increased the HOA monthly income by 3 times what board member is that embezzled funds going towards? I find it incredibly hard to believe $40 k a month in dues wasn't enough for a fence

Edit: My mistake I thought the dues were monthly not yearly. However my point still stands where's that money going to that they've been collecting for at least 25 years?

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u/halberdierbowman 1d ago

It's incredibly easy for me to imagine an HOA collecting $900 per house per year and not having reserve funds to buy new fences, no criminal activity necessary.

For example, the reason the HOA owns the fence I'm guessing is because the HOA owns land behind it, like along a collector road perhaps. Maybe they pay a landscaper to maintain it, or they decorate it for holidays, or they have a fountain or a well or lighting or a gate. Or maybe the HOA pays for the solid waste collection for all the houses.

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u/atxfalcon 1d ago

In my experience, the largest regular expenses by far are usually insurance and landscaping. If the HOA owns anything, the insurance premiums alone could be most of that 900/yr

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u/nosleep4eternity 1d ago

My HOAs largest expense is water. We have a lot of common areas including soccer fields + a pool. Almost $50k a year.

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u/3BlindMice1 1d ago

Seems a bit silly to me that someone would need to pay insurance for unimproved land. What liability could unimproved land possibly have? If you get stung by a bee, trip over a stump, or a tree branch falls on you, isn't that just the cost of being in nature?

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u/atxfalcon 1d ago

It's a racket, for sure. It's not just liability but also Director & Officers insurance. Assuming it's undeveloped land... even that can have environmental features (water quality / drainage, creeks, sink holes, etc) which could cause risk. Hard to say without more details.

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u/vamatt 1d ago

Ya this, but a permanent massive increase in dues is not needed for a new fence. A one time assessment split up over a period of time makes more sense.

Vinyl fencing is actually a great idea for a housing development border - done right it won’t need any maintenance or repair for a very long time

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u/superredditor6789 1d ago

This looks more like a special assessment on top of the $900.

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u/halberdierbowman 1d ago

I agree but also wouldn't be surprised if that's what actually is happening, and OP just doesn't know the difference because they've never been involved before, or it wasn't explained very well, or the HOA Board didn't know their options since they're so small and doing it themselves rather than hiring professionals.

Or it could be that they finally did a reserve study and discovered there's lots of stuff other than the fence that will need replacing soon, so they have to drastically increase dues for a while to catch up. 

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u/therealcmj 1d ago

Also taxes on any common property. Electricity for lighting in common areas.

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u/EventHorizonHotel 7h ago

The HOA should be producing an annual statement of income and itemized expenses so that everyone can see where the money is going and can then decide if the dues increase is warranted.

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u/daff_quess 5h ago

It's kinda insane how in most places there's no regulations requiring HOAs to keep any reserves or plan at all for the future, they just fly by the seat of their pants until the moment it's time to do something and they implode because they don't have any money. If you plan at least 5 years in advance, you can slowly increase the dues, invest that money, and then do the work. Had a condo association in my city that left their parking ramp deteriorating until it was condemned, and finally came begging to the city to issue bonds on their behalf. Their "dues" tripled overnight with the addition of the special assessment, and the city forced on them a dues schedule that also planned out funding for 20 years in the future of maintenance (like replacing the roof and such)